Job 38 with reference to
34:29-33 and much more that is kind
in the sphere of the word of God

Let us take the latter
first.

GOD’S GLORIOUS HOLINESS

Its Celebration

The reader may recall Job, the
target of Satanic attack, since the devil sought to prove that his righteousness
was mere ethics for profit, not for any other reason, such as the love of God or
truth.

Hence Job was passed for
assault, to try him, and it was most trying. While Job passed the test, at times
he grew a little bitter, wondering how the righteous could be sustained, when
false accusations and fraud had such reward. Nevertheless, in the midst of his
trials, he cried out that he knew his Redeemer was alive, and in the terminal
phases of the Age, He would stand upon this earth, that his own eyes would see
Him, without intermediary. That was the crucifixion of the devil's designs, by
Job's faith. Meanwhile, Elihu, one of those who were with Job, calling together
to see him in his great afflictions, losses of children, the respect of his
wife, wealth and health, after hearing many attacks on Job, by which some sought
to make it appear he was simply a sinner caught out at last, made his own
statement.

The gist of it was that God is
righteous and that whatever is said, this must not be said, that He is unjust,
nor can this be made an intrusion from His creation, as it seeks to understand
His ways. We have considered Job at some length before, for example, in Barbs, Arrows
and Balms31, pp. 265-269,Things Old and NewCh. 1, The
Power of Christ's ResurrectionChs. 3,
4, SMR pp. 95,
358,
372; Christ,
the Wisdom and the Power of GodCh. 2; The
Christian PilgrimageCh. 9 News
152; and most recently in
Importunity, Opportunity and Purity of HeartChs. 1 ,
2, 3,
6, 7From these sources,
if desired, more preliminary information may be gained on Job and his friends.

We turn now to focus Elihu, who makes many valid
points, and though tending with the others to lecture too assuredly as far as
Job is concerned, he yet seeks directly to justify GOD! IF God hides Himself,
who can find Him! If God hides His face, cries Elihu, who can see Him!

In the presence of Job, the
divine test required that the strategy of the matter should NOT be known. This
then is reinforcing Elihu's thought. You cannot compel God to divulge what you
seek just because it seems a good idea. On the other hand, He has CHOSEN as Job
was so apt to declare, what He wants to reveal and redemption and final judgment
are amongst those things, yes and individual knowledge of Him after the
resurrection.

Does God then hide His face ?
Not from any as far as the Gospel is concerned, not in the understanding of His
word to those who seek Him; but at times, as with Paul (II Corinthians 12), and
indeed as with Hezekiah (II Chronicles 32:31), He may test and try purity, for
it is of great value, giving it opportunity to show itself, and character to
grow.

This testing applies to nation
or individual equally. Knowledge cannot find Him for mere interest - one
remembers how Christ would not respond to the prying Herod! God is indeed
is personal, and though, if you will, you may find His address, He is not at
home to the prying, the spiritual peeping-toms who feel they have right to
access, and stride with dominant lordliness into His presence. Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for THEIRS is the kingdom of heaven, said His express image
and eternal word (Matthew 5, John 8:58, 1).

How then shall He be found ?
Stressed greatly here is the majesty and power of God, whose works speak of His
grandeur, whose ways are His own, on whom all depends (Romans 11:33). It is
necessary however to realise that mankind person by person ALSO depends on God, for
sanity, for strength, for life, for vitality, for exuberance and joy of heart,
and for peace. Indeed, for pardon! (Isaiah 55, Micah 7:19ff.). What glorious
assurances are these.

Thus in Job 35:29, Elihu also
declares this:

“If
HE gives quietness, who therefore can make trouble!”

This is beautiful. When we come to Christ, whom the Father appointed
from eternity (Ephesians 1:4) as Saviour of the soul of those who were foreknown
to be His, and indeed, sent as the One to be offered sincerely to all men (I
Timothy 4:10, II Timothy 2), Lord and King , then the rest, which includes a
profundity of rest past all limitation, this follows. Just as all are invited in
a love which knows neither bound nor limit for itself, for He statedly would have all men to be saved and to
come to a knowledge of the truth ( I Timothy 2), so those who come arrive where PEACE IS:
and thus we find it there.

"He
gives quietness ..." Said Christ: You shall
find rest for your souls, though some take a while to find the
agreeableness of His terms, for we do not come as lords, but as His people, His
sheep. There is little quietness for those who want a multiple lordship, whether
from Romanism, false prophets like Muhammad (More MarvelsCh. 4), or their own unscrolled philosophic
princes!

How foolish to knock on the door
of some slum when you are seeking 100 million dollars to found an industry! How
ludicrous to knock on the door of philosophy and proud religion when you want
the unsearchable riches of Christ (Colossians 2:8) and the definitive approach
to your Creator, even to His heart.

Hidden from effrontery, He is open to those who like
children come where He may be found, and coming find their Father, whose word
has surveyed millenia, and placed in the centre, the Messiah whose death in the
vicinity of AD 30 has increased the guilt of the predicted time, for those who
slew Him, but not for these only. It does just the same for those who ignore
Him, so killing what He came for, as far as they are concerned, and scorning the
sacrifice without which God would never have made the earth at all (Isaiah
51:16); for He works ALL things after the counsel of His own will (Ephesians
1:11).

Go where He is to be found
(Isaiah 55), and people are urged to call upon Him when He may be found, when
in Christ HE IS NEAR.

“But now in Christ
Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken
down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity,
that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in
Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile
them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the
enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who
were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

“Now, therefore,
you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints
and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom
the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the
Spirit.”

Think now
of Psalm 45! “THEREFORE WE WILL NOT FEAR!”

Think then
of Habakkuk 3, “Though the fig
tree may not blossom… YET I will rejoice in the Lord…”

Now let us
turn to

GOD’S MAGNIFICENT MAJESTY

and how it
should be praised!

Job 38 asks questions, and
tonight we refer to just a little of this interrogation. Look at 38:19-22.

“Where is the way
to the dwelling of light?

And
darkness, where is its place,

That you may take
it to its territory,

That
you may know the paths to its home?

Do you know it,
because you were born then,

Or
because the number of your days is great?

“Have you entered
the treasury of snow,

Or have
you seen the treasury of hail,

Which I have
reserved for the time of trouble,

For the
day of battle and war?

By what way is
light diffused,

Or the
east wind scattered over the earth?”

Were you born in the place of
darkness ? Do you know it because of this ? Are you, in other words, part of the
elemental beginning of things ? Were you, for that matter, born in the light ?
Do you know HOW it is diffused ? Scientists talk of this ad nauseam, and
while we have shown there is no insoluble mystery
(cf. SMR pp. 419ff.,
421ff.,
410ff.), its actualities are still beyond their
entire understanding, as is so much of the creation, which is grand is scope,
magnificent in conception, brilliant in technique, showering astounding beauty
as in birds, skies, sunsets, and bringing sharp rebuke to humanist secularism,
as man imagines it all invented itself in some rainy day when it didn’t have
enough to do, before it was there, or came by magic

(cf. TMR Ch. 8's
early list of the callow
collection and its refutation, and SMR
422Eff.).

This is nonsense. It came for
one and one only good reason, that its Maker, as in all things, made it do so!
Remember how Sennacherib was routed when the Lord hailed on them – maybe
meteoric fragments hailed down, but in any case the result brought victory to believing Hezekiah! (II Kings
19:35ff.)! God did indeed reserve hail for the day of battle then, as we see in
the book of Job! Even the snow
(Job 38:22), magnified, is in fact a marvel of intricacy and geometry,
delightful design with symmetries and astonishing craftings able to delight the
eye of reason, and the eye of the aesthete. It is so often so. The creation is
so far past utility, that it is futility to seek to bring in the asthenic arts
of reductionism to cover any small part of its exuberance.

So has He done His myriad
works…Let us cite from my work, Joyful Jottings, No. 6.

The sheer magnificence of the mercy
of the Lord, is like a jutting cliff,
abutting into space from glorious
high ground.

His purity, like streams in heights
unthinkable,
dazzling with light,
His peace like a profundity
both illimitable and lovely,
His love, like torrents of iridescent
waters,
cascading in vertical fall, touching
the rocky surfaces as they go,
sweetening the air and enlivening
the verdure.

His creativity,
from which myriads of dependent creativities pour like drops from the spray,His depths which are as unfathomable as His wisdom,His mockery of space, a mere item of expenditure
from the celestial magnitude, which created it,a play-pen for man,His time which overarches all occurrence,
and gives it scope once it is set up in its puny position, like toy soldiers:it is the wonder of God which is so blatant that it
makes bill-boards look discreet,so beautiful that it leaves all examples of earthly
beauty like children's books,and so humble that it is not
even seen by the wilful and the arbitrary.

TRUST then
in this loving Lord, realise His power, inhabit His kingdom, rely on His
strength, understand His compassion, study the Gospels of His advent on earth,
be content in His quietness, for as Elihu declares, if HE gives quietness, WHO can remove it!
As Paul parallels and consummates: the peace of God which passes all
understanding will keep your hearts and minds, garrison them, in Christ Jesus.
But that ? It is a functional formula for the Christian: PRAY in detail, and
rely on Him who hears, having met Him at the Cross and found His life at the
resurrection, being enabled by His Spirit and dowered with His gracious power
for service.

Let
us however proceed with Joyful Jottings 6.

He has spun like a spider, the web
of life. Out goes the material, like a fence around a new property. Then
comes the information storage unit, to enable action to be orderly. Next
arrives the executive wing, to translate the information into action, and
the concepts into occurrences. With that soon arrives consciousness, that
attestation of life which is as real as a motor, compared with mere hand
work, and defines in thought, the entity, the reality of the life form
in mind, and now in hand. Thence, instinctive powers, to pre-dispose to
wiser ways, lest the work be lost through its own level of freedom; but
not so determinate, that it cannot be individual in measure. Mind and its
analytical force, predictive power and its discerning discretion, all,
as it were, enter left, or right, onto the stage of life. It is built like
a skyscraper, each element discreet, all plan integral.

The spirit of man
comes like a box for mind, a self-consciousness, a God-conscious capacity
enshrined, for the mode the Lord will chose, a display unit for conscious
reflection and self-control, a mandate to investigate and subdue the earth,
equipped with ejection seat from the mind of God, like pilot able to leave his
vehicle, but not space, so that the fool who says in his heart, There is no God,
may be appeased in his wholly undivine wrath, and enabled to act if he
should so will, in his futile fiasco of investigations of what is not there,
having left what is.

Like a banquet are spread by the
Lord, the sheer ingenious multitudes of inventions, freedom waving the
flag; and the power to love, that is there also, and with it of course,
to hate; to do good, and with that naturally, to do evil, for there is
no ‘good’ in program, but the programmer's mind; but in man, there is scope
for real good, and genuine evil, in which he is expert, but not nearly
so clever as is the devil in that domain, who runs it with a bitter smile,
and an inventory of wrath, because his time is short, and he is smart enough
to know it (Revelation 12:9-12). Man however, he is often dull enough not
to know it, and wilful enough to dash himself on the rocks of reality,
without the purity of the spray or the delight of the scene. As to that,
this deal may be distasteful, but it is asked for; it is empty... but popular.

God over all in His mercy does not
reclaim it all,
in this like a slag-heap chemically re-processed. Hisofferis to all, and His selection criteria in reclamation
are such that "He would have all men to be
saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"(I Timothy 2:4), but the way being narrow,
and the door, the crucified Christ: many are they who avoid it as if it
were Auschwitz, and thus voluntarily go to what is worse! (cf. John 6:56-68).

As to Hell, it is not reached because
God is short of love, like an athlete short of breath, or a vexed school-teacher,
who has "had enough of kids"! It is the exclusive domain of the devil and
His angels, prepared for them as the Lord has said, and accessible also
to man, when he so prefers darkness to light that this is his condemnation,
even in the face of light (John 1-3:19).

His divine mercy then ? Have
you read the poem,

The Everlasting Mercy,
of John Masefield. I seem to remember that,
quite amazingly, he visited our Heidelberg School in Victoria when I was
a child. If you have not meditated on this poem, could I suggest you remedy
the omission.

The majesty and sheer splendour
of God is the ultimate uplift, leaving all mountains ranges but glorious
creations. It is that of Him who dwells in light unapproachable (I Timothy 6:16), whose grace is as
profound as the depths, whose love as high as the heavens, whose beauty of
holiness is the source of all actual beauty and whose rebukes litter the earth
with its desolatory diffusions and confusions, as it runs from God as from a
roaring bull, because its sins are vast, its heart is hard and its mind is
dilated.

What it misses however, with such
sheer pertinacity and mere blindness, it is a marvel and a wonder to be found, not lost, to be sought, not
evaded. Reverting now to Joyful Jottings 6, we find this.

But God ? He makes no omissions.
If you have not called on His name, and sought His mercy, do so. There
is none like Him. His self-declaration is definitive in His eternal Word,
vested in flesh as the Christ, Jesus Christ the Lord, His being the power
in remedy which parallels the divine power in creation in which, as the
living word of God, He also acted (Colossians 1, John 8:58). It is His
salvation is the alternative to slavery to sin, self-sufficient sin (which
is quite illusory - try being born, some day), seedy sin, splendid self-glorifying
sin (why ? did you make yourself ?), ANY sin except the sin which WILL
NOT COME to be cleansed, in a life which will not receive correction!

There is a sin to death, and it
is not good to play with fire (I John 5:16). Chronic and inseparable sin
can sear the soul into a rejection set like concrete, the fabric of life
into a charring that reeks with what is destroyed (I Timothy 4:2).

That sin in essentially is the sin
of severance from the call to mercy. It is the sin of the beggar who will
not acknowledge need, of the starving who would rather die than accept
charity. Except note this: THIS CHARITY, it is the charity of the one who
in charity made you, so that you could receive your need, or deceive you
soul. The sheer grandeur of His conceptions, like the refined diminution
of His humility, of Him who faced the cross of contempt to deliver His
children from it, and calls all with a sincerity which His words
attest, His deeds demonstrate: these are like Him. To love Him is to love
what is lovely, yes its source.

To receive His salvation is to bloom,
and not to go to seed. It is what life, sentenced in sin, is now for; and
it is the beginning which does NOT end (John 10:9,27-28), because on HIM,
for all who are His or will come to Him, on HIM, is laid the iniquity of
us all, and BY HIS STRIPES, are healed all who are His (Isaiah 53). There
is nothing that is too hard for the Lord; and if you fear you may not be
one of His sheep, and try to convince yourself you are not invited, forget
it. IF YOU COME, that proves you are one of His, for all who come to Him,
the only Saviour, HE WILL NOT CAST OUT! How do I know ? He said so, and
so it operates (John 6:37, Acts 4:11-12). If you do not DESIRE HIM, why
complain ? If you DO, then come. His call is clear, constant over thousands
of years, and in the same terms of salvation (Isaiah 55, Ezekiel 33:11,
Lamentations 3:33).

If you have come, then GO and spread
His salvation-news, His Gospel, acknowledge His greatness and operate at
the level, which continually is there, like a vast and delightful plateau,
set on the hill-top of His presence, to which this so free access is given.

It is said once, but let it be
said again: NOTHING IS TOO HARD FOR THE LORD. That message resounds from
Sarah's time to that of Mary, from age to age. Mountains CAN be moved by
faith. If THEY are there, GOD is beyond them. NO GOOD THING will He withhold
from those who walk uprightly. It is because He is good, and the road for
such traffic, is the road of faith. See Mark 11:23, Psalm 34:19,17, 37:39,7,
40:5, 84:11.

NOT ANZAED BUT
ANSWERED

So is the extravanganza of disfaith
overcome by the humble heart's recipience before the living God.

Yet in the whorls of that shattered
cosmos of disbelieving hearts, there lies the ash which will accept no beauty
(Isaiah 61:1-3, 57:20-21, and the war which nothing will tame but the flame
which engulfs its rabidity, and gives it the destiny to which sightless sighs
lead it.

Let us see just such things as these in Isaiah
51:10-11:

"Who among
you fears the Lord?

Who obeys
the voice of His Servant?

Who walks in
darkness

And has no
light?

Let him
trust in the name of the Lord

And rely
upon his God.

"Look,
all you who kindle a fire,

Who encircle
yourselves with sparks:

Walk in the
light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled—

This you
shall have from My hand:

You shall lie down in torment.

Here you see the only adequate
reason for the mischiefs,

the extravanganzas, the bonanzas,

the silly songs of misplaced zeal
of man, set in stanzas,

commanded, insinuated, luxuriant in
creeping vines,

oppressive in humidity like
jungles;

here is the ground for man's
madness, in worshipping now this film star, this football player, this golfer,
this philosopher, this guru, or if not,

then worshipping as this name, this
fame or this strain of ideas suggests.

How CAN he possibly be so foolish ?

Of what clay is this creation and of what a spirit

that he could conceivably be
so corralled, so lassoed,

so inveterately subject to such insignificantly
founded passions,

such deceptions, dupings,
duplicities,

deceits or such petty grandeurs.

It is NOT that he is mad, but
maddened. It is NOT that he is a fool in himself, but fooled.

And
why is he fooled ? It is surely because whatever is profoundly displaced,
whether in engineering in spirit, is likely to be colossally troublesome. Put a
piston into a mill and you get a mashed piston or mashed mill or both. Put a man
among man, so that he ignores his Creator, and he is perpetually seeking for,
longing for, intuitively sensitive to, moved towards what is NOT his Creator.
Romans 1:17 shows the proceedings that follow, now here, now there, now this
way, now that, but always in spirit and in confusion in one direction, and if
not interrupted, to one end.

What is it like ? Why what more than this, a dog which has a master, and cannot
find him, so that it seeks with tale between its legs, or with barkings, or ferocity or
tameness or whatever other inept manner may accord with its nature, for one who
is: or else, in despair or alienation, it hates all masters, or whatever other bauble of misdirection seems to fill
the gap, or atone for it.

Is this not the dogheartedness of which Avon's bard
spoke, in the case of the worst of King Lear's daughters ? Do you recall the
expressed if figurative desire to anatomise one of his offspring, to see what
lay about her heart! She is not alone, nor is the gall of gore the only ground
of such invitation, for the spiritual pride and irrationality which is near to
suicide that is another option, is common likewise; and they all share the same
bed.

You see a man in a tower who will
not come down until he gets money for some religious project, and a man with oil
gives him a few million for his trouble. WHY ? In what manner does this glorify
God ? In what way is this a work of reason ? You say, But a man can give his
money where he will ? Yes, but this is not the question. The question is
this: WHY DOES HE SO WILL ... and why do so many in so many ways follow things
clearly irrational: and because they are called religion, or because they strike
some concordant note, like a resonating bell, they respond as if feckless, as if
foundering in spirit, as if without rationality, as if sweet reason found in
them no harbour, and faith hovered without its due and true object.

Why does this occur in men brilliant in mind, or
powerful in profession ? Why, if your heart is caught, your mind tends to
follow. It is essential therefore for man that his heart be NOT caught! unless
it be caught up in the actual Creator, the true and real God, the One with
power, as Jeremiah is moved to put it , the One who DID create the heavens and
the earth (10:11), for the other kind, being deceitful objects of Satanic
delusiveness, merely creep in like viruses to destroy.

So do we find in Jeremiah 17:1-19, with emphasis
added for the point at hand:

"The sin
of Judah is written with a pen of iron;

With the
point of a diamond it is engraved

On the
tablet of their heart,

And on
the horns of your altars,

While their
children remember

Their
altars and their wooden images

By the
green trees on the high hills.

"O My
mountain in the field,

I will
give as plunder your wealth, all your treasures,

And
your high places of sin within all your borders.

And you,
even yourself,

Shall
let go of your heritage which I gave you;

And I
will cause you to serve your enemies

In the
land which you do not know;

For you
have kindled a fire in My anger which shall burn forever."

"Thus says the Lord:

'Cursed
is the man who trusts in man

And makes
flesh his strength,

Whose heart departs from the Lord.

For he
shall be like a shrub in the desert,

And
shall not see when good comes,

But
shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,

In a
salt land which is not inhabited.

'Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

And whose
hope is the Lord.

For he
shall be like a tree planted by the waters,

Which spreads out its roots by the river,

And
will not fear when heat comes;

But
its leaf will be green,

And
will not be anxious in the year of drought,

Nor
will cease from yielding fruit.

'The
heart is deceitful above all things,

And
desperately wicked;

Who can
know it?

I, the
Lord, search the heart,

I test
the mind,

Even to
give every man according to his ways,

According to the fruit of his doings.

'As a
partridge that broods but does not hatch,

So
is he who gets riches, but not by right;

It
will leave him in the midst of his days,

And
at his end he will be a fool.'

"A
glorious high throne from the beginning

Is the
place of our sanctuary.

O Lord,
the hope of Israel,

All who
forsake You shall be ashamed.

'Those who
depart from Me

Shall be written in the earth,

Because they have forsaken the Lord,

The
fountain of living waters.'

"Heal me, O
Lord, and I shall be healed;

Save
me, and I shall be saved,

For
You are my praise.

Indeed they
say to me,

'Where is
the word of the Lord?

Let it come now!' "

So at this last part, do we see
Jeremiah himself, surrounded by deceit and hatred, persecuted and seeking
constantly to be purified and kept, suffering a mockery which did not have to
last long, since Jerusalem at this point was at the side of the abyss, and was
soon to be destroyed; but it was one which did cause agonising concern, as he saw what he
loved sedately running to its doom.

You may say, But that is no answer!

Cancer is no answer to itself, either; but it needs
a cure.

There IS no answer IN
the disease, of body or spirit, until you get the cure. In the case of the
spirit of man, it is directly tilted at the Lord God of creation, and until it
removes the skew tilt, and ceases to tilt in its self-assured splendour at the
Lord, its tilt will incline it to just and deserved doom, which all the
insouciance in the world will not allay, nor any remedy fix. Why ? It is because
if you CHOOSE the disease of spirit, then your spirit being diseased, becomes to
life itself, deceased, alien. God is a SPIRIT and spiritual dissidents are by
that very fact aliens, self-imposed inhabitants of immigration centres now
become detention centres: divinely detained, ready for ruin.

They may glory in their detention centres, they have them air-conditioned and have free medical attention, if you want to pursue
the analogy; but they are and remain aliens because in this case, the spiritual
one, this is the way they CHOOSE to have it. Alien from their originator,
destiny and dynamic, they are left like remnants in a sale, detached,
inglorious, ruptured, severed, increasingly without meaning, except this, that
they mean to be ruptured from God.

CHOICE is indeed available to man, in the negative
sense. Christ Himself declares very clearly and openly that THIS is the
condemnation that people, in the very face of the vast amplitude of the love and
the light, Jesus Christ, PREFER darkness (John 3:19). The
author once preached this in a student sermon at Westminster Theological
Seminary, and was lampooned and mocked for it; but this does nothing to alter
the fact that it is so written (cf. The Kingdom of HeavenCh. 4). GOD knows what He is about, and theological
philosophers cannot psychoanalyse HIM!

The mark indeed was downgraded from a First,
as earlier
for Public Speaking, to as near a failure as could be done, in the case of the
sermon, without actually
failing. The seminary however had no answer to Colossians 1:19ff., any more than
to this; for man's talk does not remove the speech of God. (Cf. Questions
and Answers Ch. 7, as here
linked, including *1, and
*2.)

On the other hand, it is equally true, and should be
acknowledged, that man
cannot in himself choose God, but is enabled to come to Him in faith because of
regeneration, this being at the love of God, where His desire that ALL might be
saved (which is known because He continually says so) is implemented (cf. SMR
Ch. 6, Endnote 6 and reference above).

As the Bible makes continually most clear, there is
majesty in the solemnity of the divine judgment, security in the rule of divine
sovereignty, but love in the eminence of divine desire, which reaches like the
mountains of nobility above the surface of the plains,

seeking all,

forsaking what forsakes at the last, and
in Israel and Jerusalem,

seen in its magnificence of grief and its
heights of compassion, as Christ wept for their aweful recalcitrance and
deceptive immovability of heart.

THE SPURIOUS MYSTERY
IS TO BE AVOIDED, THE LOVE ASSURED

The
spurious 'mystery' that God does not really love enough for that grandeur of
sweep and incandescent innocence of heart, it is no mystery but a conflict with
the word of God.

The furious desire, on the other hand, that man may
simply reach out and find God at will, is equally foolish.

It is by
invitation, it is by power, it is by pardon that this is to be enabled, for the
natural man indeed does not think of spiritual things as wise (I Cor. 2:14).
When thus the Gentiles receive repentance, it is indeed a reception, a grant
accepted and not a
thrust of mere force; but the grace to do so is from the Lord. What He excludes
is not from lack of desire, as if God were ALMOST love (contrary to I John
4:7ff.), or does not NORMALLY have pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel
33:11), or changed His mind about seeking the reconciliation of all men
(Colossians 1:19ff.), or any other philosophic monstrosity of man's invention,
whether from the slip of Calvin or for any other reason (cf. Tender Times...Ch. 2, End-note 1,
recently extended, and see Indexes on Predestination, Calvin,
Foreknowledge).

On the contrary, the grandeur of His grace reaches
from the outset, yes and this emphatically, to all things, yes whether in
heaven or on earth, as Paul declares.

What in the end (as in
foreknowledge from the first), He excludes, He removes because love does
not there find its place. The real ‘mystery’ is this, that He should be so
loving, so merciful, so grand … but that, it is not an affront to truth,
but part OF it! That is the way He is, a matter for worship, not worry! Indeed,
the contrary is the case, for when the Maker of all is love, then love has its
resting place and truth its delight (cf. Micah 7:19ff.). So far is all this from
being like walking in a dark room, in Calvin's figure, that it is blazing with
divine light and sympathy, holiness and wonder (cf. Light of DawnCh. 1, newly extended).

The love is affirmed; the option of preference negatively is affirmed;
the power of God is not limited by His love does not force. What could be
simpler! (cf. Tender Times ...Ch. 11).
He knows HOW to love and does it! Man must learn from Him, and if he only did,
then so many forced marriages, forced 'conversions' by fear and intimidation and
the like would be avoided. But man is constantly vacillating, now thinking
himself a god, now able to subdue God to his will and wishes, while still
outside the kingdom of heaven, now embarking on a limitation of the love of God,
and inventing what it is difficult to distinguish from some kind of autocratic aristocracy.
Such problems arise when one departs from the word of God, imposing omission on
its transmission! They do not exist in the clarity of what is written, which
subdues all thoughts to Himself.

Such distortions can appear from the mind of man, by
addition or omission concerning the word of God; but God is not in that sort
of defilement any more than in the other. He is where He may be found, and that
is in love, by grace, through faith, with repentance. Here the Christian may
come, not marvelling that God
would so love, for He IS love and it is THIS which is the marvel (I John 4:7-8).
Rather, is one replete with joy that the One who saved, is the One who would
have all, so that each one saved is not some select agent, but one found in mercy by the
power of that God who would have all to be saved, but wrests none beyond the
created reality of being in His own image.

For all this, His power and His wisdom is
sufficient.

Thus is there a MAJESTY and PROFUNDITY about His
love, which is in harmony with the SPLENDOUR of His power and the BEAUTY of His
kingdom. To be sure, you are 'born' into it, but there was no violence before
the birth. Violence is done to the will of none and Christ wept not in
impotence, but in purity of restraint (Luke 19:42), declaring to now doomed
Jerusalem, IF YOU HAD KNOWN,
EVEN YOU, IN THIS YOUR DAY ....

They didn't realise, they would not, despite all His works
and His words; and He did not
weep in dichotomous delusion, but in loving grief at their rejection, their
preference, so confirmed, so deadly. There, there is Majesty, there is Splendour,
there is that marvel and wonder of divine tenderness which, though He be aroused
when truth must be applied, so solicits and so seeks beforehand, if by any
means, having made peace by the blood of the Cross, the cross of that Christ in
whom all fulness of the Godhead dwells, He might reconcile all things ... as the
word of God declares (Colossians 1:19ff.). It is better to find these things
from what is written, as Calvin rightly says, but wrongly in this omits to do.

Is God then frustrated ? Far from it. Is a man of any
heart in the end frustrated at the maiden who WILL not respond ? He may chastise
himself if he acted unwisely in the process, but God is never unwise. In the
end, in our figure of speech, if she is not yours, so be it. She may be deluded, but she cannot be
grabbed. What in our analogy is a matter of the individual, so that no delusion
is needed to reject (though in some cases the individual wonders afterwards if
this were so!).

in this case, however, when it concerns the coming before the very Maker and Creator of wonder and
power, of all our wisdom and all our powers, then any rejection is indeed worse than
delusion, though not always less. It is for those who so occupy themselves,
defiance, mutiny, dispossession of the source of human hearts, which thus languish in superficiality, like detached
organs, and beat the air.

Answer ? it is this: Seek the Lord with all your
heart. What if he does not want me ? one may ask. Not possible in the ultimate
sweep of things. There is indeed an unforgivable sin, but this is seen in
Hebrews 6 and 10, where there is a preliminary tasting and savouring of
spiritual things, and there is a playing about with love. It can indeed occur;
but this is sure, that if you RECEIVE Him, HE receives you. If you want Him,
take Him; if you do not, why lament ?

You cannot ? Then call on His name, and He is
plighted to hear you, and trust Him (Acts 2).

You do not trust Him ? Then again, why lament.
If He is so untrustworthy as you seem to imagine, why worry! Yet why would
anyone distrust the maker of his power to discern, of the universe, of our
vitality and reason itself! Is His power and wisdom less than yours ? Does He
depend on robbing His creation in order to satisfy Himself, for whom all things
are a product and a creation, which adds to Him nothing, since He is
self-sufficient!

If He were not, then He would not be God, but a
derivative with whom insufficiency lodges, in the system in which He is placed.
Since He is however self-sufficient, then there is nothing to be gained by refusal, but loss ... loss of
God. You gain a breach, secure an emptiness, leave our heart beating in air, a
component of the philosophy of disjunction, so often aired in political extremes,
in licences of flesh or in pride of heart.

Sin ? It is masterful in the case of myriads; but how unwise to
be subservient to ... that!